176 Chapter 6 6.4. Reflections on the research design The empirical focus in this thesis has been on the growing number of anticipation process that have been used to guide sustainability transformations in policy contexts around the world (Zougmoré et al., 2016; Sampson et al., 2016). The case studies analyze multi-actor and multi-level modes of environmental governance, by examining relationships between governments, public and private partners such as research institutes, civil society and the private sector (Driessen et al., 2012; Lemos & Agrawal, 2006). The anticipation practitioners are part of what has been named the science-policy interface; the acceleration of efforts in science to realize productive outcomes for society, including through policy interventions (Dinesh, 2022). I openly explored what anticipation processes emerged from a literature search and snowballing technique to comprehensively understand how approaches to anticipatory governance steer sustainability transformations. In chapters 3 and 4, I set the scope on anticipation processes that intended to inform decision-making. This choice influenced the analysis. Had I taken a targeted approach to include niche practices that are more innovative, experimental and radical - such as those analyzed as part of the Unmaking project (Feola et al., 2021), Seeds of Good Anthropocenes (Bennett et al., 2016), the Lighthouse Farm, and the work on games in project such as Anticiplay (Vervoort, Milkoreit, et al., 2022) - approaches 3 and 4 would have most likely be better represented. However, I consider the focus on science-policy interfaces pivotal to understanding dominant dynamics in more conventional governance arenas, to establish a foundation for future research. Focusing the research on four regions in the Global South (particularly in chapters 3 and 5) is an important contribution to the current research focus on the Global North (Vervoort & Gupta, 2018). The knowledge imbalance was found to have shaped anticipatory governance across the globe, by perpetuating its science, technologies, and funding into the lesser researched areas. In addition to those more Global Southoriented chapters, chapter 4 gives insights into how the global foresight industry steers the future: by bringing forward the techniques of anticipation and shaping visions of the future through them. The empirical studies thus address an important knowledge gap in these four global regions, as well as insights into Global North – Global South dynamics and dependencies that shape visions of the future. Research already pointed to unevenly distributed climate impacts, coping mechanisms and knowledge to deal with the impacts of climate change (Yaro & Hesselberg, 2016), to which this research adds insights into the unevenly distributed power to envision and govern sustainability futures in the present. The research was designed to advance the conceptualization and empirical contribution of anticipatory governance. Looking back, it was very helpful to start the thesis with a
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